Freefall

by Robin Brande

  “That mutt has it too good,” Hildy said as Eliza scratched the terrier’s ears and then clipped on a leash.

  “She won’t think so when I’m out there dragging her through the snow.”

  “Eh, it’s good for her—remind her what a Syracuse dog is supposed to be like. She’s gotten soft—haven’t you, Daze?”

  The dog raced down the stairs and waited for Eliza at the bottom. “We won’t be gone long,” Eliza said. “It’s probably too cold for both of us.”

  “I’ve got that meeting at Walsh’s this morning,” Hildy reminded her. “I might not be here when you get back.”

  “Good luck,” Eliza called, then she and Daisy stepped out into the morning chill.

  It had been two weeks since they arrived—two weeks of unpacking and organizing and cleaning and otherwise avoiding the reality of the situation. For Eliza, at least, it was all still make-believe. She wondered when it would finally sink in that she had left the city where she had lived all her life, left friends and family and the familiar routines of her day, to hide in a strange town for the next eight and a half months.

  “Daisy, stop.” Eliza tugged back on the leash and the dog strained forward. It was a daily contest for superiority, and Daisy, despite her size, normally won. Eliza didn’t have the heart to discipline the dog, even though the terrier sorely needed it.

  Among her other personality defects, Daisy seemed to object to every four-footed creature she met. She couldn’t pass a Husky or a Doberman without lunging at it. She was less aggressive toward dogs her own size, but still growled at every one of them. And cats—why were they even allowed? Daisy seemed to have made it her personal mission to chase every single one of them off the earth.

  Eliza and the dog puffed their way up the steep slope at the west end of Careybrook Lane. Eliza’s boots slipped in the snow, but Daisy continued on. She might be handy in the Iditarod, Eliza thought, if only someone would believe in her and give her a chance.

  “Hold on,” Eliza warned, tugging back on the leash while she steadied her feet on the steep hill. But the dog ignored her and lunged ahead, leaving Eliza no choice but to keep scrambling.

  At the top of the hill, to the north, was a web of cross-country trails where lately Eliza did her best thinking before writing. In addition to working on the book about Jamey, she also had her syndicated newspaper column to write every two weeks, and regular monthly assignments from various women’s magazines.

  It had been a struggle, these past two years, to keep the magazines interested. During Eliza’s adventure days she could always sell her essays easily, and for good money. She’d even been able to compile some of her best ones into a book which sold reasonably well. Not as well as Jamey’s books—those were still popular, and maybe even more so with certain people now that he was gone.

  As the dog pulled her along, Eliza practiced saying what she meant to write as soon as she got around to it that afternoon.

  Change is inevitable. The cells moving through your veins right now aren’t the ones that were there last month...

  Is that true? Eliza wondered. She’d have to check on the Internet when she got back.

  Change is inevitable. You can stand where you are and let the waves crash over you, or you can dive in head first to meet them...

  Well, Eliza thought, at least the first line was all right, but she’d have to keep working on the rest. It was her monthly essay for Outdoor Woman, and even though Eliza hadn’t been outdoors for more than a walk or a run since Jamey died, so far the editor hadn’t seemed to notice. As long as Eliza still had lessons to draw from the life she used to lead, she hoped she could continue writing the words that might inspire other women to do what she used to do.

  Eliza and Daisy passed a wooden bench dedicated to one of Hildy’s old neighbors who used to rest under that particular maple tree. Then they strode up a small incline, toward a fork in the trail. To their left was the path leading to the lake and some of the fancier homes in Careyville, to their right a trail across the meadow. It forked further on, offering a choice between the woods or a long walk out in the open beneath a power line.

  “No, Daisy, I want the sun,” Eliza said, fighting with the dog to stay left. But Daisy must have caught some scent in the woods, Eliza realized, because the dog was set on going that way.

  Eliza gave in, as usual.

  They were trotting along the path to the woods when Eliza heard a loud grunt, and then the sound of something bounding down the trail behind her. It sounded like an animal—something big.

  “Bear!” a man shouted.

  Eliza whirled around. She barely had time to register that there were bears in that part of New York, when a huge mass of black fur came tearing toward her and Daisy.

  Eliza stumbled back just as Daisy lunged forward, jerking the leash from Eliza’s hand. The terrier attacked, leaping into the face of a large black Labrador, snarling and snapping and barking.

  “Daisy! Stop!” Eliza tried to grab the leash, but it was lost in the tornado of teeth and bodies.

  “Call your dog!” the man shouted, racing to catch up.

  “I’m trying! Daisy!”

  The Labrador’s owner, a man in sweats and a T-shirt and running shoes, immediately tried to break them apart. He hoisted his dog by the collar and kicked Daisy to keep her off.

  “Hey!” Eliza shouted.

  “Well, get your dog!”

  “I’m trying!”

  Eliza reached for Daisy’s collar just as the man kicked again.

  “Ow! Damn it!” Eliza collapsed to her knees and cradled her wrist.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Damn it!”

  Meanwhile the terrier continued her insane assault. “Daisy, would you shut up!” Eliza managed to reach over with her good hand and grab the dog’s leash. She jerked Daisy to her side.

  The man pulled his own dog a few feet off the trail. “Bear, sit.” The Lab plopped his tail into the snow and panted in a friendly way.

  “Are you all right?” the man asked.

  Eliza rotated her wrist to test it. “I’ll live. You didn’t need to kick her.”

  The man’s voice was icy in return. “You should learn to control your dog.”

  You should learn to control yourself, Eliza thought, but she didn’t say it. Because the truth was Hildy’s dog was a menace.

  Eliza pushed to her feet and faced the jogger. And wasn’t prepared for his reaction.

  The man took a step backward. “You’re...I’m...I’m s-sorry.” He suddenly seemed very interested in the trees off to the side.

  Eliza yanked on the leash. “Come on, Daisy. Miserable dog.”

  “I’m sorry,” the man said again.

  Eliza sighed and looked at him. “No, I’m sorry. She’s just... protective. Or possessed, whichever one you believe.”

  The man still wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It’s...f—” He seemed to struggle with the word. “Fine. Come on, Bear.” He headed left and continued jogging down the trail that followed the power line.

  Eliza’s shoulders slumped. She knelt down beside the terrier. “Daisy, you are beyond a doubt the worst dog in the world—you know that, don’t you?”

  Daisy’s soft tongue swept Eliza’s nose.

  “Don’t even try it.” Eliza straightened and gazed out over the white-encrusted field to follow the progress of the jogger. He moved quickly, and she understood why she hadn’t heard him before she did. With her mind occupied and Bear and his owner running at that pace, she never had a chance to react.

  “Thanks a lot,” Eliza muttered to the dog, who happily set out for the woods. It was a full ten minutes before Eliza felt her heart beat slow down.

  They completed their loop and emerged back on Careybrook Lane at the opposite end from where they had started. Birds fluttered from branches as Eliza and the dog passed, sending showers of snow to the frosty lawns below.

  They had just passed a house with a basketball hoop chained to the mailb
ox at the end of the driveway when Eliza heard a girl call out, “I like your dog.”

  Eliza turned and answered wearily, “I don’t. You can have her.”

  “Really?” A chestnut-haired girl of about ten wearing a purple coat and matching wool hat bounded from her front steps down to the edge of her driveway.

  “No, not really,” Eliza answered with a smile. “I’m just not a big fan of hers at the moment. But she’s not mine—afraid I’ll have to take her back home.”

  The girl squatted beside the dog and stroked her back. “What’s her name?”

  “Daisy the Destroyer. Daisy the Demented.”

  The girl laughed.

  “What’s yours?” Eliza asked.

  “Katie.”

  “Hi, Katie, I’m Eliza.”

  The girl stood up and offered her hand. Eliza was impressed to find the girl’s grip so strong. And unlike some girls Eliza had met, Katie had no trouble looking her directly in the eye. It was a mark of confidence Eliza loved to see in girls of any age.

  “Isn’t today Monday?” Eliza asked, looking at the date on her watch. She often lost track of the days of the week—they were all the same to her unless she had some reason to remember, like a deadline. “Does school start this late here?”

  “The teachers had a meeting or something this morning,” Katie said.

  A woman emerged from the house carrying an armful of blankets. “Katie—oh.” She hesitated when she saw Eliza, but quickly recovered and smiled. “Hello.”

  “Hi, I’m Eliza Shepherd. I live just down the street.”

  “Oh. Hilda Shepherd’s girl, right?”

  “Well, sort of—her daughter-in-law.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Come on, honey, we have to go.” Katie’s mother set the blankets on the back seat of the car and walked around to the front.

  “Well, see you later,” Eliza told Katie.

  “Okay.” The girl scuffed her boots up the driveway and made room for herself in the back seat.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said, walking toward Eliza. “Where are my manners? I’m Carolyn Jackson. I’ve never met your mother-in-law, but my husband knows her. He’s lived here for ages.”

  Eliza shook her hand. “Nice to meet you. I won’t keep you.” She waved to Katie and set off down the street.

  The car slowed as it passed her. Carolyn rolled down the front passenger window. “I’m sorry—I meant to stop by when I saw you moving in. Is everything all right? Are the two of you settled?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “We should have coffee sometime. I’m free Thursday morning—maybe then?”

  “Sure. That sounds nice. I don’t know if Hildy—”

  “I’m sorry, I really have to hurry,” Carolyn interrupted. “We’re late. Why don’t you walk down Thursday. Around nine-thirty?” She waved and drove off before Eliza could answer, but what would she have said except yes? Now that the initial flurry of moving was over, Eliza had begun to realize just how isolated she was. She had never been the new girl in school, never had to begin from scratch building a life with friends and activities and new routines. She felt unsteady, and that was what she was struggling to convey in her Outdoor Woman essay. Like waves crashing against your shins...

  She’d have to keep working on that.

  * * *

  “Well, it took some canoodling, but Teddy Walsh finally agreed.”

  Eliza looked up from her laptop. “To classes?”

  “No, better,” Hildy said. “We’re going to cater his new opening.”

  “We?”

  “Just one night—do you mind? I’ll do all the cooking, but I told him there’d be two of us to dish it out.”

  “Hildy—”

  “There’ll be lots of other tables—ours will be just inside the door when they first walk in. I thought I’d make my champagne potatoes...”

  Eliza squinted skeptically at her mother-in-law. Hildy had talked her into gigs like this before: “Just a few hours...you won’t have to do a thing...it’ll be fun…”

  Eliza saved the work on her laptop and sat back in her chair. “Tell me.”

  Hildy smiled, as if she already knew she would get her way. “I met with Teddy—I was expecting his brother, but for some reason it was Teddy, but that was all right because I know him even better from when Jamey was growing up—”

  “Cut to the chase.”

  Hildy laughed her husky laugh. “It’s just for one night—just a few hours. I thought you might like a behind-the-scenes look at some of the people around here.”

  “What do I have to wear?”

  “Black. I know you’ve got plenty of that.”

  To Hildy’s credit, she didn’t seem uncomfortable making the crack about Eliza’s clothes. Hildy, more than anyone else, had always been willing to acknowledge the death of her son and talk about it openly. It was a skill Eliza was still trying to learn.

  Eliza sighed. “When is it?”

  “A week from Friday.”

  “And this is for what?”

  “The Walshes are opening a new store in Monarch—it’s the town just over.”

  “I thought you were going to talk to them about holding classes.”

  “Teddy says he’ll think about that, too. We talked about doing some wine-pairings like the ones I did at Fancy Foods.”

  In addition to running a catering business and teaching cooking classes, Hildy had worked out an arrangement with the largest specialty grocer in Las Vegas to combine cooking lessons with wine-tastings that would highlight the store’s selection. Every other Friday night she would haul her hot plates and cooking supplies to the store, and teach groups of half-inebriated customers how to whip up something besides cheese and crackers to go with their pinot noir or chilled chardonnay.

  “Your dog got me yelled at today,” Eliza tattled. She recounted the morning walk. “Oh, and I met Carolyn...Jackson, I think she said.”

  “Hmm, must be Willy Jackson’s wife.”

  Eliza smiled. Everyone was a “y” to Hildy—Ronny, Jamey, Teddy, Willy, Lizzy. Eliza wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her mother-in-law call the President by a nickname if he had grown up in her neighborhood.

  “She invited us for coffee Thursday morning.”

  “If I can,” Hildy said. “You should go, though. You need to start making friends.”

  “Thanks, I think I noticed that.”

  “It’s not good for you to hang around with an old woman all day.”

  “That’s why I keep walking her obnoxious dog,” Eliza said. She awakened her sleeping computer. “I’ve got to get back to work. I’ll be happy to be your servant girl next Friday.”

  Hildy smiled. “Good.” She bolted from her chair as if all her earlier relaxation were just an illusion. “I have to go shopping. I told Teddy Walsh I’d bring by a few samples tonight.”

  “I thought you already had the job.”

  “You don’t know Teddy,” Hildy said. “That boy has always loved to eat.”

  * * *

  Eliza wondered if she had made a mistake. Somehow she’d let Hildy talk her into going with her to Ted Walsh’s.

  “We’ll just pop in and out,” Hildy said. “But you should see how the other half lives—the Walshes have always had the best houses.”

  They sat in Hildy’s car, lights off, taking in the view.

  “How big do you think that is?” Eliza asked.

  “Three story—I’m sure there’s a basement. Mmm, maybe five or six thousand square feet? It’s not as big as his parents’ house used to be, but it’s still plenty big.”

  “And he lives there by himself?”

  “I know—what a waste,” Hildy said.

  “What do people do with houses that big?”

  “Wander from room to room counting all their toys.”

  Eliza shook her head. “All I can think of is having to clean it.”

  “That’s what cleaning women are for.”

  “Wouldn’t you
feel lonely in a house that big?”

  “Let’s go ask him.” Hildy exited the car, leaving Eliza to wonder if her mother-in-law really would ask that question. Yes, she decided, Hildy probably would.

  Eliza followed Hildy to the door, feeling more like a fraud with every step. Here she was—semi-famous writer, lecturer, former adventurer—dressed in her nicest pair of pants and her one dress sweater, walking up the heated concrete driveway to Theodore Walsh’s home, hot dish cradled in her arms, prepared to pretend she was Hildy Shepherd’s assistant chef just so she could steal a peek inside and satisfy her curiosity about the lifestyles of rich people.

  Research, she told herself. For that novel she might write some day. Or for a magazine piece on the trap of possessions versus the freedom of the wilderness. Or something like that.

  “I’m just going to carry this in and leave.”

  “No, you’re not,” Hildy scolded. “You’ll stand there and let me introduce you and you’ll talk like a normal human being.”

  Eliza rolled her eyes. “He doesn’t want to meet me.”

  “Of course he does—he just doesn’t know it yet. And you’re going to try to talk fast and scoot right out of there, but I’m not going to let you. It’s time you practice making small talk.”

  Eliza suppressed a smile. “You’re a bossy old witch, aren’t you?”

  “You’re not going to sit around every night watching my hair turn gray.”

  “It’s already gr—”

  The door swung open. A man in his early thirties stood before them dressed in jeans, wool socks, and a Syracuse University sweatshirt.

  Eliza felt overdressed.

  “Hi, Teddy, here we are,” Hildy said, sweeping past him into the front room.

  From Hildy’s comment about how much Ted Walsh liked to eat, Eliza expected him to be overweight. To the contrary: He was handsome and fit, with sandy brown hair, wire-rim glasses, and a charming half-smile that he directed toward Eliza.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  She kept her head down and followed Hildy.